HS is meant to be a card game that is supposedly easy to play but really it depends on the deck. Decks that plays on curve are usually fairly easy...e.g. most aggro & midrange. You bascially dump your cards on curve...deciding between trading or hit face and that's about it but i find the combo decks can be very difficult to play ...e.g. machine gun priest...fatigue warrior....quest mage. Any control type decks also requires quite a bit more thinking especially mirror match up.
Problem is Blizzard keeps creating RNG build-in cards that essentially lowers the skill cap. Imagine if they create Knife Juggler to say "Whenever you summon a minion, deal 1 damage to left-most enemy characters"...just something like that would increase skill cap tremendously. But instead they use RNG to hide the bad players and to attract the mass audience.
In newest expansion, one of my fav cards is Defile. This is one high level skill card. I find it utmost entertaining to see streamers finding a way to board clear using defile and it's these type of cards that we need more in HS if you want HS to be a true esport.
Problem is Blizzard keeps creating RNG build-in cards that essentially lowers the skill cap. Imagine if they create Knife Juggler to say "Whenever you summon a minion, deal 1 damage to left-most enemy characters"...just something like that would increase skill cap tremendously. But instead they use RNG to hide the bad players and to attract the mass audience.
In newest expansion, one of my fav cards is Defile. This is one high level skill card. I find it utmost entertaining to see streamers finding a way to board clear using defile and it's these type of cards that we need more in HS if you want HS to be a true esport.
the problem isnt that blizz creates rng cards its that rng cards are too impactful. you talk about knife juggler but people started to really complain about rng when gvg hit. piloted shredder, bomb lobber, sneeds old shredder those were cards people didnt like because they were too impactful knife juggler is not a problem when it comes to rng
You also have to split up RNG cards. One could argue that those that add cards to your hand actually increase the complexity and skill cap because you have you be able to adapt to new scenarios to make use of them. Plus you still have to pay the full mana cost so the swings, while present, are not nearly so extreme. Although it is also true that too much of this and it becomes pointless trying to play around anything and gameplay becomes simple again.
Perhaps the bigger problem, as is implicitly said above with the choices of examples, is when the RNG affects the board directly.
Surprisingly Hearthstone is not as simple as the state of the game may suggest it is, and there is a lot of room for skill.
Just RNG, and Balance is suffocating those aspects of the game.
A lucky player wins more often than a skills player. And a Pro Player with Hunter will lose to a Rank 15 Druid simply because of the gap in Power Level.
If Blizzard would stop printing Useless cards, Stop Power Creeping cards, and actually BUFF and Nerf cards in a timely fashion.
I think it's much like snooker or golf, anyone can pick it up and play but takes years to actually master it. I reckon you're best off asking someone like StanCifka or Kolento. Ask them how many hours they practice and whether they think it's a hard game... I imagine I know what the answer is.
Stancifka said in a web interview that he practices 15 hours a day for a week before tournaments.
First of all, let me clarify this one more time I really enjoy playing HS. I think it is a fun game. Different classes give game a dimesion which makes a big difference. Every class has its own identities, pluses and minuses. But I personally feel like Hearthstone is a very simple game, with not much complex strategies or deep thinking required to play the game. I hate people talk about HS like they talk about rocket science.
Almost evey game is won or lost based on mulligan and first four draws. There's not a whole lot of things to think about everytime it's your turn to play:
1. What cards do I have? 2. What cards are on the table? 3. What cards will my opponent have in the next turn? (Usually related to the mana pool of said turn)
There's really not a lot of necessary memorizing going on, since there can only be 2 cards of each in a deck (unless arena), and sometimes overthinking it can cost you games too (Games don't tend to often last longer than 10 turns, so everytime you play too careful because you're afraid your opponent might play a certain card next, or are afraid that that one secret is the one you fear most, you might end up giving your board control away out of fear for something that isn't there).
Decks are also pretty small, meaning shorter games usually.
So it's pretty easy to learn the game and to reach a certain 'skill cap' in my opinion. (Honestly when I watch people in invitationals or championships play there are never really any people that stick out for their cardplay skills, they all just play the smartest moves possible everytime it's their turn with the cards RNG handed them.)
This is not necessarily a bad thing. The fact that it is so simple might be what makes the game more fun perhaps for many people and easy to pick up and play during breaks or whenever.
But what do you think?
Simplicity =/= Depth
Chess is a very simple game, at its core. Yet there are grandmasters who can easily wipe the floor with players of less skill. Since Hearthstone has RNG aspects, there are still situations where a less skilled player will beat a more skilled player, but in general the same holds true - a Legend or Tournament level player will beat a consistent Rank 20 player.
You've simplified the steps you have to think about as much as possible, when in fact each step leads to even more thought. To take the first step only - you not only have to think about what cards you have, but how you could use them optimally, how they might be countered by the opponent next turn, which ones have an RNG aspect which may go well or poorly. It's a big interconnected system.
Saying that overthinking costing people games is a bad thing undersells the value of tricking the opponent. If my opponent makes a play I think signals they have Flamestrike and I play around it, only to later realise they didn't have Flamestrike, was I wrong to play around what clearly wasn't a signal? Or was I just tricked by my opponent, who wanted me to think they had Flamestrike? If I hadn't played around Flamestrike and lost the game because he had it, that would have been clearly the worse play, right? The best play isn't always the winning play.
Small decks and shorter games do not go hand in hand, and should not be considered a bad thing. Yugioh has larger decks and if you're lucky a game might last 5 turns. If I'm playing a greedy deck and lose on turn 5 to aggro, that's my fault for not putting in early game, not the games fault for 'being too short' or 'not having larger decks'.
I'd also advise you to watch some 'pro' games again. If you think the recent and infamous Priest vs Priest game (Walaoumpa vs CoachTwisted) was both players making 'the smartest possible moves' every turn then I'm afraid there's no help for you. Even at the pro level, people make mistakes and don't play the optimal decks every game.
Hearthstone may be 'simple' compared to MtG or Yugioh, but that isn't a bad thing, and doesn't in any way make it a bad game. It doesn't need to be more complex. Hell, I'd say we need it to be less complex - show us what cards actually do in the collection, Blizzard! - before we can start adding in more complex stuff.
Well i can´t wait for MTG Arena Beta so yes imo Hearthstone could use more Complicated Interactions. Spells like Defile and Spreading Plague go into Direction (Spreading Plague Scarabs just got too much health in combination with Mana Ramp but the Spell itself punishes Mindless spamming of small minions).
It has been said before, hs has become a mobile game and it's no where near it's previous self(vanilla hs), which was fairly simple game aswell but it had depth if you wanted to master it.Now is a simple fruit ninja game with cards that people play while they wait for the bus or go in toilet.
The only ones who believe the opposite are the bad players who are also tryhards and want feel good about themselves. They cry when others take their only ''achievement'' away from them and say bs like l2p and idiotic decks take skill and bullsh*t like that.Just last month i faced a jade druid who missed lethal not once but two turns in a row and a pirate warrior who went face when i had lethal on board and he could easily turn the tables by trading the 3/4 to my 8/3 giant.Do you know their ranks?430 legend and 700 something legend respectively.The fact that high legend ranks are filled with terrible players like those should make clear how low is the skill level required in this game.
Long story short,this game is fun joke and should be played like that.Don't ever expect it to become skill intensive again and play it for what it is.Otherwise migrate to my favourite card game of all times gwent :3.I play them both and have fun with both because i know what i seek from each of them.
Not all decks are mindless, but it's true that none of them requires too much thought. Like OP, I also hate when people talk about this game like if it were rocket science. This game is supposed to be played just for fun. When oppressive decks like Jade Druid become a real problem, the game just sucks, because they remove the fun from it. Gladly I enjoy playing arena, but I know that many people don't, and I feel sorry for them because they can't have fun with this game thanks to the incompetence of Team 5. Oh god how I hate those guys, I swear I want to see all of them fired.
err, i'd say that the reason hearthstone is so popular is BECAUSE of its simplicity, not in spite of it.
This. People need to realize that not everyone is a hardcore legend player. The vast majority of hearthstone players are casual who like the quick and simple gameplay.
When I watch Firebat, Kolento, Amnesiac, Pavel or Zalae play ranked/tournaments, or Kripp or Hafu play arena, it's painfully obvious that they are way more skilled than me. If I played any of them in a large sample of games, they would wipe the floor with me, and apparently unlike a lot of the posers in this thread I'm not too self-absorbed to admit it.
To me, that just opens and closes the question of 'does skill exist'. Clearly it does, because there are players who are visibly better than others, so, like, ipso facto. The unspoken implication of all these arguments in this thread is 'I'm as good as anyone else playing Hearthstone', which I find pretty overwhelmingly arrogant. If there's no skill in this game, go beat any of these players a bunch of times and win some tournaments, then come back and tell us about it
Now ben brode did say that we absolutely do not think our players are dumb. However, the initial reasoning given on the murloc nerf was a clear indication that hs team believes the game needs to simplified and dumbed down for the players. The whole equality combo being apparently too complex for some people, possibly for those who can't do simple basic mathematics, i was honestly shocked when i first read the reasoning.
Now ben brode did say that we absolutely do not think our players are dumb. However, the initial reasoning given on the murloc nerf was a clear indication that hs team believes the game needs to simplified and dumbed down for the players. The whole equality combo being apparently too complex for some people, possibly for those who can't do simple basic mathematics, i was honestly shocked when i first read the reasoning.
I'd say they dumb it down for beginning players, wich is not stupid if you think about it. If you start a game and on every new card is a wall of text it might scare people of that aren't necessarily stupid ,but don't wanna invest a ton of time . ( I heard such arguments about gwent lately) .
I agree on the Pyro equality combo tho. Even if it's frustrating that you forgot about the aura buff, or simply didn't knew it worked that way... I am like ok, now I learned something wich makes me a better player next time .
Yes there is tons of room for improvement and dev team 5 understand this. In my personal opinion if more cards likeFatespinner are printed the game will become a lot more complex and interactive. Because you cant just be playing HS on the bus and accurately play around Fatespinner you have to be paying close attention to how your opponent has been playing the game what deck he is playing and the board state. HS will probably get more complex as time goes on and i cant wait to see what the game looks like on its 5 year anniversary in 2 years from now.
HS is meant to be a card game that is supposedly easy to play but really it depends on the deck. Decks that plays on curve are usually fairly easy...e.g. most aggro & midrange. You bascially dump your cards on curve...deciding between trading or hit face and that's about it but i find the combo decks can be very difficult to play ...e.g. machine gun priest...fatigue warrior....quest mage. Any control type decks also requires quite a bit more thinking especially mirror match up.
Problem is Blizzard keeps creating RNG build-in cards that essentially lowers the skill cap. Imagine if they create Knife Juggler to say "Whenever you summon a minion, deal 1 damage to left-most enemy characters"...just something like that would increase skill cap tremendously. But instead they use RNG to hide the bad players and to attract the mass audience.
In newest expansion, one of my fav cards is Defile. This is one high level skill card. I find it utmost entertaining to see streamers finding a way to board clear using defile and it's these type of cards that we need more in HS if you want HS to be a true esport.
Surprisingly Hearthstone is not as simple as the state of the game may suggest it is, and there is a lot of room for skill.
Just RNG, and Balance is suffocating those aspects of the game.
A lucky player wins more often than a skills player. And a Pro Player with Hunter will lose to a Rank 15 Druid simply because of the gap in Power Level.
If Blizzard would stop printing Useless cards, Stop Power Creeping cards, and actually BUFF and Nerf cards in a timely fashion.
This game would be amazing.
--Alfi--
You can find me here! Good luck everyone!
Play Chess.
Wanna start a Correspondence game? Ok. I take white
1. d4.
Your move now.
Check out my entry for this week's Card Design Competition. Vote for it if you like it.
Well i can´t wait for MTG Arena Beta so yes imo Hearthstone could use more Complicated Interactions. Spells like Defile and Spreading Plague go into Direction (Spreading Plague Scarabs just got too much health in combination with Mana Ramp but the Spell itself punishes Mindless spamming of small minions).
err, i'd say that the reason hearthstone is so popular is BECAUSE of its simplicity, not in spite of it.
I can link you posts of people not understanding this game, Probably hundreds of those posts a day.
I'd say the if you only really try to know about how Hearthstone works, the more you will know that you actually know so little about the game.
Anyway, arguments without conclusion are useless, please make a poll out of this. Do you guys think hearthstone doesn't need skill?
When I watch Firebat, Kolento, Amnesiac, Pavel or Zalae play ranked/tournaments, or Kripp or Hafu play arena, it's painfully obvious that they are way more skilled than me. If I played any of them in a large sample of games, they would wipe the floor with me, and apparently unlike a lot of the posers in this thread I'm not too self-absorbed to admit it.
To me, that just opens and closes the question of 'does skill exist'. Clearly it does, because there are players who are visibly better than others, so, like, ipso facto. The unspoken implication of all these arguments in this thread is 'I'm as good as anyone else playing Hearthstone', which I find pretty overwhelmingly arrogant. If there's no skill in this game, go beat any of these players a bunch of times and win some tournaments, then come back and tell us about it
Now ben brode did say that we absolutely do not think our players are dumb. However, the initial reasoning given on the murloc nerf was a clear indication that hs team believes the game needs to simplified and dumbed down for the players. The whole equality combo being apparently too complex for some people, possibly for those who can't do simple basic mathematics, i was honestly shocked when i first read the reasoning.
Remember that complex doesnt equal fun. Difficult? Yes. Fun? Not always. Go play chess if you only need difficulty.
Yes there is tons of room for improvement and dev team 5 understand this. In my personal opinion if more cards likeFatespinner are printed the game will become a lot more complex and interactive. Because you cant just be playing HS on the bus and accurately play around Fatespinner you have to be paying close attention to how your opponent has been playing the game what deck he is playing and the board state. HS will probably get more complex as time goes on and i cant wait to see what the game looks like on its 5 year anniversary in 2 years from now.
Yes, and it will never change because Blizzard wants as many Chimpanzees as possible to play this game.
I think it's a fair bit more complicated than the "hurr durr children's game" crowd give it credit for, but it's not terribly complicated no.